I think the product manager’s job is broad, self-driving, and people-centered. As a product manager, you have to know design, engineering, business, UX, etc, to understand and facilitate conversations in the team. Product Managers should be proactive to drive things to move forward. Sitting there and waiting for people to tell you what to do doesn’t help a lot for the team as a whole to succeed. Product managers also have to deal with lots of people matters. In the book, the author mentioned that it is easy for people to fall into the category of a bad product manager. When people are having different goals, responsibilities, and different standpoints, there is inevitably to have conflict. Knowing how to mitigate conversations, make people on the same page, and persuade people to work on things is crucial for a product manager.
A thing I learned greatly from this short chapter is the mindset of being a product manager or how to know I’m doing a great job as a product manager — to hear “I would trust that person with my life”, and “That person makes me feel excited to show up for work every morning” from other colleagues.
How would you recommend a new hire product manager to learn all the stakeholders/ways of doing things/company culture in this team/company? It is hard for a new hire to know everything, and she/he should learn by doing. However, I still want to ask if there are any pro tips for the start.
